#765 – Anconeus

When I first learned to tie my shoes I was taught the simple “bunny ear” method. Apparently this is what little kids are taught until they get older and learn the “real” way grownups tie their shoes. I was told that it’s some nonsense where you make a single loop and then wrap the second lace around it and then do a back flip while clapping your hands and land doing the splits. I may have gotten some of those moves out of order because I somehow never heard of this “adult” version until I was in college. “Haha! That’s so cute that you still tie your shoes like a little kid!” My life drawing professor was kind of a jerk that way.

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56 thoughts on “#765 – Anconeus”

Those extra fingers would slow you down. I don’t tie my shoes anymore anyways. I follow the “Slip-on/off” school of thought: Tie them once and slip them on and off without ever adjusting the laces again.

There are a multitude of ways to tie your shoes – more than just those two anyway. You can change things from the knot itself, to the crossing pattern of the laces over the tongue of the shoe. People think it’s weird the way I lace my shoes. I do everything the “normal” way, except I seem to do something different the way I lace through the holes. I think I use more of them or something…

I first learned how to tie my shoes the “grown-up” way, but I learned to do it by mirroring my parents, so even though I’m right-handed I apparently tie my shoes like a leftie. My dad always jokes that this would be a red herring for Columbo.

Maybe this is a shameful thing to talk about, but I have something to confess. I’m twenty-four and I still tie my shoes the “little kid” way.

When I was taught how to tie my shoes they tried to teach me the “adult” method shortly after, but I just kept using the first way. I never understood, and this still stands to this day, why it’s necessary to learn a new type of knot when the one I already know does the task just as well. What exactly makes the first way only for little kids? Is it the simplicity of it? Because I don’t see how that’s a problem, learning a more complex knot just seems to needlessly complicate things. The only reason I can think of is some kind of misplaced sense of tradition, as if somewhere down the line a cobbler somewhere discovered an easier to learn way to tie shoes and was so embarassed by how simple it was he only taught it to his kids who couldn’t figure out the other way at first, and this method has been carried down through the generations or something.

Well tradition can take a hike, I say! I’m not planning in to those conformist complex shoe knot tying ways! Fight the power!

What’s this adult way? I just do 1/2 knot, then hold one lace in a loop while wrapping the other lace around it and feeding it through the wrap to make a loop as well. then I tie the two loops together to prevent them from coming undone.

I tied my shoes the “little kid” way until high school. My friends didn’t believe me that I couldn’t tie them the “adult” way until they saw me actually tie them and have to concentrate on how to do it. Now I proscribe to the slip-on method.

Oh yeah, also, my mom taught me to use the “lock lacing” method (at the very bottom of the lacing methods page). I find it makes for a nice balance between lace length and stability. Which reminds me, I got a new pair of shoes a month ago and still haven’t gotten around to relacing them with a lock lace. Which is odd since that’s usually the very first thing I do when I get new shoes.

Poor Biff xD
I’m a newer reader, Read all 700 or so comics over the weekend .-.
I refuse to tie my own shoes. I tie them once, And keep slipping them on. Or, I just get a friend to tie them. It seems whenever I try to tie them, It becomes a bad knot and never gets undone xD

No one taught me to tie my shoes. In fact, I only ever learned this infamous ‘double-knot’ technique in first grade, when I had stopped to tie my shoes for the umpteenth time that day when my teacher said ‘Oh for god’s sake’ and seized my feet by the laces. I was so mortified that I practiced tying my shoes several times that night.

I didn’t know there was more than one way of tying shoes. Now I wonder if I’m tying my shoes like a child. That page Svenman mentioned was useful in finding a more secure knot. I have the irrational fear of tripping over loose shoelaces.

As for 4 arms, that can be handy(no pun intended, nor wanted). I wouldn’t want to have a character with 4 arms, though. I have enough trouble deciding what to do with 2 arms in a comic that I’ve considered having an armless character. In fact, I HAVE cut off a character’s right arm once just because it got in the way(nowhere on my site, though).

I had an evil kindergarten teacher who would yell at me when I colored outside the lines who kept me in class either after school or during recess to “teach” me how to tie my shoes. She stood there and berated me while I sat there in tears, having no clue how to do the magical loops to tie my shoes in what I guess is the ‘adult’ way. I ended up getting one, but I had no clue how I did it.
I never got to learn the easy way. When I saw the easy way on the TV 2 years later, I was a bit miffed that there was a way to tie shoes that was less mentaly scarring.

This comic is awesome, I’ve read through the archives but never got around to posting.

I know of a couple of ways to tie my shoes, though never really encountered any hostility to tying my shoes a certain way. I think at the moment the shoes that I wear have two “slip on” styles because I don’t really prefer one style over another.

Honestly, I never figured out the supposed ‘adult’ way of shoe-tying until I was 16. I’m 23 now and still don’t use it. Bunny ears go so much faster and wrapping both loops around creates a nice double knot.

i actually learned when my dad let me in on the secret that it was almost the exact same thing as tying the strings the back my dress; just revolved to my feet.
i had been tying my dresses since i was in 1st, i didn’t learn to tye my shoes till 3rd.

P.S. i’ve been reading for the longest time, and am a huge fan. this is my first time commenting. :]

I could never figure out the “bunny ear loop” thing for tying shoes, until my grandfather told me I could just knot two loops together. I still don’t understand why people think everything for kids has to be made unnecessarily complicated so it’s “cutesy”.

There’s an adult way? I have to tie my shoes, one can’t tie boots only once, unless one plans on leaving them on their feet forever. Imagine the boot feet from that! <- I only own bots, no shoes. And one pair of Mandles.

You Americans confuse me, in England there’s only one way to tie your shoes. This is why all that “bunny rabbit” “around the tree” stuff in films always lose me, we do it differently. I’m currently, I guess not so much now; I was under the impression that there’s only one way to tie your shoes? Just you had the choice between doing one knot or double-knotting it. Hm…